It hasn't been a great year as far as birds are concerned, posting my lowest patch total in at least the last five years, of 146 species, fourteen species down on 2011. I added two new species to the patch-list in 2012 though. A self-found and overdue Honey Buzzard in August and Mandarin Duck in July.
This is how it broke down over the year.
The low total can be blamed on a few things:
1) The weather. Awful
2) Grazing (or lack of) on the Budge Fields - too little, too late resulted in no passage waders
3) Effort - Work getting in the way of birding. (I had 82 separate visit to the patch in 2012)
4) I missed the 'mini' autumn fall and good seawatching days.
5) We only managed four ringing sessions
I had hoped to a nice end-of-year report, but I've run out of time. I'll do a five-year patch report sometime in the new year.
In the meantime, here are some of absentees from my 2012 list
barnacle goose
goosander
red-necked grebe
sooty shearwater
ruff
green sandpiper
wood sandpiper
common sandpiper
pomarine skua
grey wagtail
grasshopper warbler
brambling
twite
I have a new focus for 2013. I have joined the Patchwork Challenge , along with the Stewart Sexton, Dave Elliott, Alan Tilmouth and James Common.
The patch competition that Alan ran way-back really spurred me on to work the patch a bit harder so hopefully this might too.
It just leaves me to say Happy New Year to you all and I'll see you in January with a refreshed blog and hopefully a refreshed Ipin!
Nice little review there Iain, lets hope the new competitions spices it up a bit! I remembered when we did Alans local patch comp years ago, I had 170 at Dru. There's a target for you ...I'm hoping for 150...
ReplyDeleteI think I finished that year on 168?
ReplyDeleteI've averaged around 157-160 since then. this year was exceptionally poor
It was poor year for many Ipin, look forward to seeing what you find in 2013.
ReplyDeleteMy year list ended on 107 here, but I had four on that list that you had on your 'missed' list, made me smile :-)
Ahead of my time ;) - good to see you adding a dot to the sparse northern map.
ReplyDeleteYou would have thought that whole absentee list would have been easy in most years !!! I think you should get out more !!!!
ReplyDeleteBrian
p.s. I came second in our local patch listing :)
You would have thought that whole absentee list would have been easy in most years !!! I think you should get out more !!!!
ReplyDeleteBrian
p.s. I came second in our local patch listing :)